


let us love the moon

by starlightwalking



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Moon symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-12 22:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11746512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: There was something beautiful about the fragility of mortal life. Tauriel has learned this the hard way, but now that she wishes for her pain to end, there is someone there to hold her back.





	let us love the moon

**Author's Note:**

> Featuring brief Tauriel/Kili, Tauriel/Eowyn, Tauriel/OC, and mentions of Arwen/Aragorn.  
> I didn't intend to write this, but I heard it was Tarwen week and I've had this idea floating around for years so it kind of just happened. Enjoy :)

There was something beautiful about the fragility of mortal life. Tauriel watched it over and over again in her life: the crumbling away of life and limb; the fading of memory and of future; the breaking, sudden or slowly, of the mortal and of Tauriel’s own heart.

It hurt, every time, like fire in her blood and knives in her flesh. The first time, watching Kíli die... She had felt as if the heart was being ripped right out of her, every dream and future slashed away with a cruel orc’s blow. The stars, whom she had loved so dearly, still shone after he was gone, a mockery of her loss.

The next had been with a human woman: fair lady Éowyn, a girl who became her charge for a time as Tauriel wandered searching for something to love. She had found it in Rohan, sharing her secrets with the king’s daughter, teaching her to fight and to love the calm moments in the night. The shieldmaiden named constellations after her, and Tauriel’s heart sang, but Éowyn fast turned into a steward’s wife while Tauriel watched and pined.

It was not until the end of Éowyn’s days, her hair gray and her face lined, that she had given a murmured confession of a love requited, flickering into life beneath long-forgotten starlight, sending a brief flash of warmth into Tauriel’s fractured heart. But Éowyn had long been lost to her, by marriage and now by mortality as life slipped from her in a final sigh.

Tauriel’s heart became cold then for awhile. She left the lands of men and returned to the echoes of lands unseen by the Eldar. She met the Avari, the Unwilling elves long sundered from her people, and melted into their world like snow as spring breathes upon it.

Among the Avari lived a single human, a refuge from the realm of distant Harad, sheltered by the forgotten elves. Their breath was warm as a summer breeze, their laugh as light and soft as the dawn, and Tauriel found herself cradled in their arms without even realizing what she had done. They were her sun, she was their stars: she found that the sky had not betrayed her after all.

It was not age or battle that took them from her, but a dreadful plague. Somehow it hurt more to watch them suffer and die slowly from a disease none of her healer’s knowledge could cure than to see them severed from her by a blade, or even to crumble away piece by piece. Tauriel’s heart bled as they did from their many sores, and by the time they had passed beyond her reach she had no more tears to cry.

A dwarf had been her first love; she saw it fit for a dwarf to be her last. There were wars brewing in the south of the world, dwarven wars, and she thought to fling herself into them in one last battle. She intended to die, ending herself along with all of her lost lovers, and she knew she would not be wise enough to avoid falling in love again.

But something went awry. She was not supposed to be there; in attempting to take a side, she introduced a new piece in the game and became a messenger between the two dwarven clans, working toward peace. The two dwarven queens fought for her favor, but she found herself in love with both of them instead of simply one.

The queens reached an agreement, signing a treaty in blood. They begged for her to stay with them, claiming they would unite their kingdoms should she wish it, and that she would rule over them all. They spoke poetry of their love, tried to sway her with their knowledge of the stars. Tauriel was tempted, but the dwarven people murmured against her, and Tauriel knew this could not be.

Tauriel had not intended for this, and she could not bear it: she fled in the middle of the night. A year later word reached her that the queens had taken their own lives in her absence.

Tauriel was beyond grief. She had nothing left to give, nothing left to take. She was an empty shell, her heart shattered beyond repair. She forsook the stars and enveloped herself in darkness.

The dominion of men had risen, and the elves had faded away into the west or else remained as forest spirits, haunting the world of men. Dwarves fought and died in pointless wars, hobbits, those happy creatures, dwindled in their own private realm, borders closed to any outsiders.

Lothlórien was empty. Tauriel brought herself there, ready to lay down in the soft leaves of a fallen realm and let the wind carry her spirit away.

But when she reached the shadows of a once-beautiful forest, she found she was not alone.

There was another queen there, the evening to Tauriel’s night. Arwen Undómiel was a shadow of her former self, mourning her mortal king, come to die in the last and final dusk of elfkind.

Tauriel saw Arwen and her eyes were opened. They came together in their grief, at first not voicing their history, then speaking haltingly, until the words came quick and fiery. All of Tauriel’s grief, and hate, and pain spilled out of her, burning her from the inside out.

But Arwen knew her heart, for it was hers as well. Her grief was like a waterfall, fierce and cool and tumbling, and Tauriel found hot tears pricking her eyes as she felt for her newfound companion.

The nights in Lothlórien were long, but Tauriel loved them. She had learned to turn her eyes from the night sky: they carried too much pain, too much memory. Now she looked to it again, Arwen by her side.

“They called me the Evenstar,” Arwen said one night. “I was the last great elf of my people. I thought I would be the last in the world. I hated the evening, until Aragorn taught me to love it and the light of the stars. Now I feel my world is dark again. Until...”

But she did not finish her thought.

Tauriel brushed a lock of hair from out of her eyes. “I loved the stars. I walked beyond the reaches of the forest until the world was lost in their light...they filled my soul. But then I shared them, again and and again and again, and they lost their magic.” She stared at Arwen, feeling her heart heal in softness. There were stars dancing in Arwen’s eyes, and she could see the beauty in them again. Her star. Her Evenstar.

“But,” she said, only the words faded on her lips.

Arwen stared into the sky. “The moon is beautiful,” she said thoughtfully.

Tauriel followed her gaze. The moon was half full, it’s light bathing the silvery trees of Lothlórien so they shone. The stars twinkled beside it, but Tauriel didn’t acknowledge their cold laughter. Instead she let the moon into her heart, filling the gaps between the broken pieces until liquid silver and love made it whole once more.

She didn’t know who took whose hand, but there was a brush at her side and Arwen held her hand.

“I loved once, and said I would never beyond him,” Arwen said, drawing Tauriel near to her. “You swore to never love again.”

“The stars have been too cruel to me,” Tauriel said, her voice cracking.

Arwen touched her forehead to Tauriel’s own. “Let us love the moon,” she murmured, and she kissed Tauriel in its pale light.

Tauriel smiled into the kiss, feeling Arwen’s warmth fill her. The hurts of all centuries remained, for nothing would erase them, but perhaps together a starlight elf and the Evenstar could find a new future together, under the moon, for all of the eternity they had left together.


End file.
